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Buying a house with trees? Learn from these folks experiences!

On Tuesday night I talked on the phone with a potential customer in Worcester whose trees I had just looked at. One big pin oak was dead, another had health problems. Mr. M told me he had just bought the house last winter. The trees were a selling point – one of the reasons he chose the house. He didn’t notice any problems because it was winter and the leaves were off.

Pin oak in foreground has been dead for over a year. The one behind it is chlorotic and has sparse foliage, and had a trench dug through the root zone 3 years ago.

Then, the next morning I went to Wayne to see Mrs. H’s red oak. She too had recently bought her house. Her tree even came with a built-in tree house, which she thinks is very cool, and is using! (it IS cool, I went up in it when I checked out the tree). Same disappointment as Mr. M’s, however. She didn’t notice health problems with the tree until she moved in.

The scorch and dead tips weren’t obvious until summer.

The good news– I don’t think either Mr. M’s pin oak (the live one, of course) or Mrs. H’s red oak are hopeless cases. Their declining conditions may be reversible. But the surprise could have been avoided. After all, when you buy a house you get almost everything else inspected by professionals, why not the trees?

There’s more to this story –both of these people avoided being victimized again- watch for the follow-up tomorrow